How can we protect our children from the “choking game”?

remember me

Kevin Conroy Tork

 I am about to share something with you about his death that you might find uncomfortable to read but if you love your child like so many of you know we did then I beg of you to read on. He was experimenting with ”the choking game”.  A very dangerous craze that has been invading our schools for YEARS, and even though we protected our son with all the armour a parent can someone got to him. Someone told him it was ok. That someone helped kill my son. I have been finding out some things about it in the last few days that I want to share. Hundreds and hundreds of kids have died playing this game. There are websites that tell them exactly how to do it, not to tell their parents or counselors or teachers, how to get the materials, how to make the materials, how to clear the history on their computers so their parents wont find out, how to use code words like choke out, the game, spider monkey, spunky monkey, etc.  They even say where to do it, in empty class rooms, bathrooms, dad’s garage, the basement. I read that one of the “rules” of this game is that when they have a ”choking party” everyone has to play and if someone won’t play then they have to leave and that they are no longer considered friends. This peer pressure during the teen years is a very strong motivator that can drive a normal kid to do the most abnormal things. It continued on to say that if your parents tell you it’s unsafe, don’t believe them they aren’t cool enough to know. I read one that said to tie a rope to a doorknob, lock the door and sit in front of it so your parents or siblings cannot come in, then to play their itunes really loud and party on! We also learned that 90% of the fatalities are boys because girls tend to partcipate in larger groups. Either way it can be deadly. Two of the most shocking things we have found out are that most parents have never heard of it and if they did hear of it they didn’t listen long enough to find out what it was or they believed that their kid would never do something like this. The other is that the schools do not want anyone to come and talk about it because they are afraid it might put ideas in their heads. TOO LATE! Schools and churches are the two most common places these kids learn about it. Almost 50 % of the kids that do this do it at school regularly! I have even had one parent tell me about a church youth leader showing them how to play it at a church retreat! Well if it can get to our child it can get to yours as well. We talked to our kids every night, I asked them every day what did you learn today. I am asking your help to help them hear of it now before it takes even one more of our children. More info is available online just type in the choking game and prepare to be sickened by what you find, don’t forget youtube.

 I was scrolling through a site called DAB (deadly activities and behavior) there was a list of just a few HUNDRED of the kids that have died. It went on and on and most all of them were my son, our story, his face.

In a few weeks the death of our son will fade for some of you until something sparks that memory. You might stop and think oh those Torks. I wonder how they are doing  and you will wish us well, and you might say a silent prayer of thanks that your child is safe and then you will go back to what you were doing, peeling the potatoes or changing the sheets and not think on this again until you hear of another teen death. Please keep in mind that in between those times a hundred more kids may have died that we never hear about because it might not be on the local news or you might have just missed the news.

Fathers you need to be willing to invade your child’s privacy, you need to monitor and talk to your boys graphically. Spot check their history on the computers. TAKE IT OUT OF THIER ROOMS IF IT IS IN THERE, block youtube so that if they need to go there they do it with you present. Don’t let them talk on chat lines even if it is in a “safe” game environment. They will not talk to you about this unless you push them a little or alot. Almost every teenage boy I talked to have said they know of it or have played it and would never be able to tell their parents for fear of getting in trouble. I even talked to my son about this very thing 6 months before he died after I saw a 5 minute segment on the nightly news and he told me he would never do anything like this and I never mentioned it again or thought about it again because I was safe. I had told my son. What I did not do was go find out about it. I just like most of you didn’t know how deadly or widespread this was and I truly believed that my kids were safe. Surely the schools knew about this. Surely they talked about it. They talk about everything else.  I was wrong!

  The GASP web site states that the two most effective tools against this are the kids talking to peers about someone that died or the families of those that have died. Kevin went to Issaquah high. There were about 100-150 kids up there at his funeral. I believe that most of them are now pretty safe and if you read about the conversation I had with my son before he died, Kevin has saved those kids but what about next year, what about the kids that weren’t there, that didn’t know Kevin. They are in school today maybe doing it right now as I write this email! How do we reach them? We as parents need to go in force and DEMAND that our schools talk about this and if they won’t then we need to band together and rent a hall or organize a picnic where we can all talk. SAY SOMETHING! ANYTHING! I am grieving and I have promised my wife and my family that I will wait a bit before I start fighting this thing! Those of you that know me know that I will not sit still and let other sons and daughters die. I will not dishonor my son that way. I am asking now for anything, information, education, opportunities to speak, anything to get this word out there and force this “game” out of hiding. I am enraged.

But most of all with all my heart I am asking you to pray. Get passed the embarrassment that we all feel about talking about God. This is why we are losing our sons and daughters. God is not in their life enough. Some of you have him in your lives deeply and your kids I hope are safe. I thought mine was too though. We don’t pray enough as a community. Our family prayed 10-12 times a year at home, on holidays and Easter, Christmas, Sundays at church when we would go, but not every morning when you get up and are blessed with another day with your kids and every afternoon when your kids get home safe from a field trip and every night when they go to bed.

There is nothing I would not do to have just one more minute to tell my boy how proud I am of the man he was. To run my fingers through his hair, to see his whole body jiggle when he thought something was funny, to share a joke that only he and I got, to do just one more thing together as father and son. To ride our 4 wheelers around the yard. To one more time sit at the table late at night in the dark and just talk, to hear him say just one more time “I love you too dad”.

I am asking you to send this email out to Oprah, Ellen, Dr Phil, Bill O’Riley, Evening Magazine, President Obama, First Lady Obama, Christine Gregior, the principle at every high school and middle school in your area, your pastors, anyone who will listen. If anyone who reads this knows a lobbyist or a senator or a member of congress please get them to read it so that we can get legislation in place that makes this activity a punishable crime. If an adult does this to another adult its considered attempted murder or at best assault, but if a teenager does this to a classmate at a party or at school or at church, it harmless fun. Please don’t go back to your lives and forget Kevin Tork. He would have sacrificed himself for any one of your children and never thought twice about it.  In fact, he did. Cherish every second you have with your child. Our world changed on Monday March 30th at 6:37 pm. When will yours change? Which one of you will be next? Help me stop this deadly, fatal activity before it takes your child. I can be reached at 425 643 6669  or kltork@yahoo.com. Thank you.